Just days after Little League International denounced Goffstown manager Jeff O'Connell's decision not to play his last substitute in the New England Regional semifinals last Friday in Bristol, Conn.,...

Brady to suspicious Texan: Pats 'just played better'

The Sports XchangeDecember 02. 2013 10:20PMNew England quarterback Tom Brady offered a simple response to a suggestion from suspicious Houston defensive lineman Antonio Smith that the Patriots knew what was coming in the second half when they rallied past the Texans.

The Patriots scored 27 points on their first five possessions after halftime for a 34-31 victory.

"You know, truthfully, we just played a little bit better in the second half," Brady said on WEEI sports radio in Boston. "We've kind of been through a lot of this before. I don't really think much of it, truthfully. I just kind of have moved on."

After the game, Smith said the Texans (2-10) used wrinkles on defense that were just installed during the week and not yet on film.

"Either teams are spying on us or scouting us ... I'm very suspicious," Smith told ESPN. "I just think it will be a big coincidence if that just happened by chance. I don't know for sure, but I just know it was something that we practiced this week."

Patriots coach Bill Belichick said Monday that he was aware of Smith's comments.

"Yeah, I saw them. I don't have any comment on them," he said. "That's a league matter."

Brady noted that second-half adjustments are commonplace in the NFL.

"If you have like a bad first drive, you don't really come over to the sideline and go, 'All right guys, we've gotta change everything. Let's scrap all the (plays) we've been practicing all week and just start making stuff up on the fly,'" he said on WEEI.

"But I think by halftime you have really a good enough sample size to figure out how the game is being played, the things, the matchups that go in our favor, the matchups that don't go in our favor. Maybe there's some new things that they've done that we've got to adjust to, but ultimately, after halftime you get a chance to evaluate and say, 'Well, how did that half play out?' "You've got to be able to stick with it, stick with what we're doing, kind of what we did against Denver.

"Or last week, we said, 'OK, these are some of the things we're going to get to and these are the matchups we like and we've got to start making the plays that we're capable of making.'"

The AFC East-leading Patriots (9-3) handed the Texans their 10th loss in a row.